Comments on: On Wikipedia

By: Alan Baumler

Alan Baumler — Thu, 04 Dec 2008 01:43:25 +0000

Jessica,

You might try wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_New_Year

By: jessica

jessica — Wed, 03 Dec 2008 23:30:57 +0000

hi i am jessica i am in grade 6 and i need help for school do you know about chineses new year history

By: gina

gina — Tue, 25 Nov 2008 06:05:09 +0000

To me, the bigger problem is that a lot of students (which I am sure you have both encountered) are entirely dependent upon Wikipedia because no one has taught them that an academic paper with only wikipedia based sources is not appropriate. I thought it was a really serious problem at my undergraduate institution, but when I took classes in Hong Kong I found it to be even worse and more unchecked. Once, everyone had to give a short presentation on Mao, and 7 students stood up and read the same Wikipedia article aloud…and the professor did very little. Clearly there are more problems here than Wikipedia, but still. I guess this is my problem, then: that many students are completely ignorant as to the proper use of wikipedia.

By: C. W. Hayford

C. W. Hayford — Sun, 16 Nov 2008 05:46:12 +0000

Nice post, Alan, though (like my own piece) maybe too optimistic about Wikipedia. Without mentioning particular articles, some are so offensively and aggressively amateurish that the only prudent strategy might be to ignore them and hope that nobody serious will use them. But then I look at the statistics that hundreds of people a month at least look at the article and maybe believe it.

So I renew my plea that everyone with knowledge or interest take one or two articles, put them into reasonable shape, and then watch that nobody messes them up.